By 2007 there were an estimated 110 million distinct websites and some 30 billion web pages on the World Wide Web (web) accessible through the Internet; these numbers continue to grow rapidly with each day. Every website has a unique web address technically known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) which appears as a string of routing numbers (e.g., 42.141.58.103). But such strings are difficult to recall so Internet users quickly developed a more mnemonic device known as domain names (e.g., www.example.com); such catchy domain name website addresses have become the public face of the URL so as to ease e-mail correspondence and general access to websites. In the past decade entrepreneurs and other business-oriented individuals discovered and began development of the incredible commercial opportunities residing in Internet accessed websites where barriers to and costs for transacting business are virtually non-existent for the motivated buyer. Once connected, it often becomes only a matter of choice or travel as to what to buy online or at a referred place of business. Entering an e-commerce website has become the virtual equivalent of going into a hardware store or restaurant; rarely does the buyer leave with nothing. This is particularly true if the website engages the buyer on a personal level with incentive or reward offerings in the form of effective, albeit virtual, marketeering. The real challenge facing business owners who have embraced e-commerce is getting the buyer to and through their virtual doorway, to their place of business by way of their web address. Essentially, for the business owner, getting their needle of a website found in the haystack of the web.
Currently, there are two basic approaches used to attract and direct buyers to business websites. First, there are search engines that mine, parse, rank and display web page content by various techniques centered on the key words found therein. Additionally, the search engine helpfully attaches affiliated business sources that may also be of interest based on the nature of the search request. These popular tools employ increasing sophisticated techniques for searches that often return intriguing data and sometimes useful information—Google alone processes more than 200 million searches a day. Yet all too often these category searches miss the mark, particularly when the buyer is searching for small and local business sources. For example, quick and useful results are returned for a nation-wide search for a supplier of 22-gauge sterling silver metal stock and even though located six states away, package delivery negates the distance factor. But a search for a local small Mexican restaurant whose name can not be accurately recalled usually returns nothing of useful value. Often an ill-planned or poorly executed web search returns an overwhelming sea of information that simply swamps anything of value that might be contained within. Even experienced web surfers are becoming discouraged by the time required to shift through the ever expanding volume of misleads resulting from the web's rampant content growth.
A second approach for attracting and directing buyers to a website are the historic advertising techniques where the website replaces the telephone number or street address in conventional advertising media like newspaper ads or direct marketing examples like distributed novelties, package insert programs, and direct mail flyers. Here, in each of these methods, the basic approach is to rely on the proven advertising practice of placing an offering in the hands of a buyer repeatedly or in hopes of striking a timely chord of recency. In the first instance, concerning repeat exposures, it is a tenet of advertising that it takes a minimum of three to nine exposures to an effective message just to capture the attention of the buyer—and more exposures the better, finally limited only by the cost of advertising. In the second instance, recency, the factor of timeliness is paramount; the buyer ready to buy, when presented with an opportune advertising message, will buy the offered product or service. In contrast to search engines, the direct connect model is immediate and unencumbered by misleads, delays and simple obfuscations that often result from searches. Unfortunately, the media costs for direct advertising are rising well beyond affordability; most of advertising supported mediums are severely impacted by the well-known information delivery efficiencies inherent to the Internet and expanding use of the Internet has significant threatened the very existence of many. Local newspapers are but one example dying for a lack of advertising revenue. Direct advertising can be efficient and cost effective, but in an Internet world dominated by search engines providing website access, the current techniques of direct marketing are proving to be ineffectual for e-commerce.
Accordingly, a more effective method than inadequate web searches and relatively costly direct advertising is needed to facilitate e-commerce. The method should be based on an ultra low-cost, widely distributed, ubiquitous advertising tool providing website addresses to facilitate website e-commerce. To control costs the method must supply a separate, widely perceived beneficial need that can mitigate the costs of distribution, be sufficiently flexible in format to permit highly variable incentive marketing, and be sufficiently short-lived in purpose to require frequent replacement to satisfy both frequency and recency factors for effective advertising. Finally, the method must effectively prompt or facilitate access to a website by providing a clear web address whereby a buyer can purchase a product or service as advertised. There is a significant need for such a straightforward access method in the emerging world of small business e-commerce.